So the large proof of concept worked and I'm going to improve the circuit strucutre a bit and put it in a more portable enclosure so I can take it to parks and the forest.
At the moment I'm planning to use one of those wooden gift boxes for bottles of wine - I find those on the street from time to time and have 3 of them now. They have a sliding panel to open them and have internal dimensions of about 10x10x33 cm, enough to put the electronics and battery in there along with everything else.
Some specific things I want to improve in the next version
- small enough to carry on a bike
- power for the sensors and motor will be enabled from the positive rail instead of the ground rail. An artifact from previous versions that I didn't change yet that made it tricky to add some features
- organize the circiut a little better, maybe even take it off breadboads :D
- easier to access and align sensors for the drop and deposit
- a way to close/seal the dispenser for transport
- make it more pest-proof - a mouse could get up in there
- easier to refill :)
Eventually I want to make it possible to use unshelled peanuts as well, but the meachanism will need to be bigger to accomodate this.
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